{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/after-tennyson",
 "title": "After Tennyson",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-iv",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 21,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1910,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV (1910)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume IV of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1910). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface speaks of the verses republished in this volume and the next, and which newspaper or earlier book printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "shapes-of-clay.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 38,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "You ask me why, though ill at ease,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within this region I subsist,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where honor’s dead, and law is hissed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And all men pillage as they please.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It is the land where freemen kill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In warm debate their party foes;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The land where judges come to blows",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And speak the things that make us ill;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A land of base expedient;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A land where gold can justice drown;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where Freedom’s chains are handed down",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From President to President;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where factions wrangle for the bread",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of honest men; where, fearing naught,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Accurst monopolies have caught",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The people in the nets they spread;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where branded convicts execute",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The laws that in a better time",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They broke, and every kind of crime",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Stalks unashamed and resolute.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Should honor e’er possess the land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And patriots control the State,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And Justice rise, divine with hate,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To choke the politician band,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O waft me from the harbor forth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wild winds. I’ll see Alaska’s sky.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Here ’twill have grown too warm, and I",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Will run for office in the North.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}